For me, the biggest challenge in making a stellar wine lies between tasting, interpreting and making changes. That is, truly understanding what you are tasting, making educated interpretations and ultimately the best decisions in changing the chemistry of the must now for your future award-winning wine. These interpretations are subjective in nature and you will not know how the decisions you make now will affect the wine several years down the road.

I could see using something like this to sharpen such decision-making skills… assuming one could afford it. However, once you own one, why would you need to learn anything since this thing will do it for you. It’s probably not for me, but I love the idea of checking the temperature, pH, brix etc… from work!

The WinePod is a state-of-the-art tool for small lot artisan winemaking. The WinePod integrates fermentation, pressing, and ageing in one elegant unit yet it is simple and easy to use. The WinePod controls the heat of fermentation and maintains appropriate ageing temperature using electronically controlled thermoelectric heating and cooling. Your wine ferments and ages in a variable-capacity stainless steel tank with an integrated wine press. The WinePod collects and transmits fermentation and temperature data wirelessly to your PC where our software offers winemaking guidance and manages your processes and records.

You would think they’d at least make it resemble a barrel? If you haven’t heard of the WinePod yet, you should in the next couple years as it will be marketed to commercial wine makers in 2007. All for now.

Gardner, cook, beekeeper, winemaker, musician, lover of outdoors, food connoisseur, husband and father. Jason has been building the 'Morgan Ranch' with his wife Susan since 2001. Each year, there is either an improvement, or an addition to the ranch. The ranch accommodates chickens, rabbits, multiple honeybee apiaries, hunting, gardening, plenty of winemaking and other homesteading activities. He writes about them on allmorgan.com. Jason lives in Indiana with his wife, kids and golden retrievers.